Magnetism, Or Not
by amandajbruce
Summary: Oliver gets in to a little bit of trouble, and Lilly tries to help him out.


Magnetism, Or Not

"I hate you."

"The more often you say that to me, the more I think you don't know what that means."

Lilly glared at the guy she considered to be her former best friend (at least for now) and angrily flicked some used gum in his direction off the end of the metal scraper she was holding. Oliver let out a bit of a girlish scream as he dodged the item.

"This is all your fault," Lilly continued as though she had not just thrown gum at him and he was not eyeing her warrily, waiting for another projectile.

A few hours earlier:

"Cute shirt."

The voice was serious, not a hint of sarcasm, and Oliver blinked as if he could not believe what he was seeing. The girl in front of him was leaning against the bank of lockers, smiling at him, her eyes moving slowly from the tee shirt she had just commented on back up to his face. Oliver quickly shot a look over his shoulder to insure she was actually talking to him.

"Uh… thanks?"

She giggled at his response and toyed with the end of one of her strands of hair. Her very long, very shiny, very blond hair. He had to do a double take. She was wearing a pretty small shirt, and an even smaller skirt. Like she had outgrown them last year and forgot to buy new clothes. Of course, that made sense, seeing as how she was not standing up completely straight, and Oliver could tell that she was still a couple inches taller than him.

Was this some sort of alternate universe? No, that only happened in the movies or the comic books. He must have fallen asleep in class again. He really thought he had managed to get out of that habit. There was no other explanation though. A girl like that would never be talking to a guy like him. That just was not the way high school worked.

"Do we have math together? You look really familiar." She bit her bottom lip after asking the question, but it was not nervous or anything, more curious than anything else.

"I-I-uh… no, I don't, I don't think so," he stammered, trying to figure out what was going on. Oliver gestured to the locker she was leaning against. "I, ah, need to…"

"Oh, right, sorry. Didn't realize this was yours. I was just waiting for someone." She arched her back a little as she pushed her shoulders away from the metal surface, and suddenly she was much closer to him. "So, where'd you get the shirt?" she asked as she stepped aside, her eyes still trained on him.

Oliver fumbled with the combination to his locker before giving up, rapping his knuckles on the outside a few times, and letting the door just click open.

"It was a birthday present. Kind of a joke actually," he mumbled, unsure where this was going.

"Cool."

One of her perfectly manicured fingers trailed down from his shoulder to his elbow, and he froze in place, his books awkwardly between his body and his locker.

"Okay," Oliver said, turning his head slightly in her direction, "what's going on?"

He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. He was pretty sure this girl was a senior. He was also pretty sure his shirt was not "cool." His two best friends might call him an idiot on a regular basis, but he really was not quite that stupid. She was also the first girl who had not referred to him as a pig, an idiot, a dumb boy, a doughnut (that one was his favorite since Lilly had laughed when she said it and not thrown anything at him), an imbecile, or some other sort of insult since he had worn the shirt all day.

"Alright, maybe I don't like the shirt," she remarked quietly, smiling at him, "but I happen to think the guy wearing it is pretty cute." She tilted her head to the side a little bit, trying to catch his eye.

Oliver made the decision at that point to just go with it. He was probably going to wake up in science in a few minutes because Lilly or Miley smacked him on the back of the head, or because Kunkle was yelling at him that he would have detention, but he figured it would probably be worth it. He flipped some of his brown hair out of his eyes and gave her an answering smile.

Across the hall, his two best friends, the ones he though would be waking him up any minute, were watching the exchange with interest.

As Oliver leaned closer to the tall blond, and the girl gave another flirty giggle, Miley asked, "do you think he knows who she is?"

"Doubt it," Lilly's voice was clipped and Miley glanced over at her to see that her eyes were hard and her jaw was set. Her fingers were locked so tightly around one of the straps of her backpack that her fingers were turning a pasty shade of white. Without looking away from Oliver and the girl at his locker, she added, "let's just go to lunch."

Lilly quickly made her way down the hall, expertly dodging the members of the football team who were tossing a ball back and forth. Miley looked from one of her friends to the other, feeling very much like the football in the hallway, before deciding to follow Lilly's rapidly disappearing form to the cafeteria.

When Miley caught up with the smaller (and blonder) of her best friends, she said, "Lilly, we can't just leave him like that. You know what's going to happen."

"It's his problem," Lilly said shortly.

"Not if he doesn't know it's his problem." Miley's voice was insistent.

"Then you go tell him that the girl he's flirting with has a boyfriend." Lilly did not slow her pace as she swept into the lunch room.

Miley, again, had to hurry to keep up, her hair bouncing on her shoulders as she practically jogged to get in line behind Lilly.

"You know he isn't going to listen to me when he's distracted by all that blond hair," Miley remarked.

"Look," Lilly pointed to a large group of guys who already occupied a table in the middle of the room, "it doesn't even matter because he's in here."

"But her boyfriend is captain of the wrestling team, Lilly."

The two girls watched as the guy who happened to be dating Oliver's mystery woman smashed a soda can on the top of his head. Both of their noses wrinkled in disgust. Then, to their surprise, the bulky wrestler stood up and strode out of the cafeteria.

Lilly's eyes widened for a second, but she made herself say, "it's Oliver's own fault."

"Not if he doesn't know who she is!" Miley hissed. "Do you want him to spend the rest of high school drinking through a straw?"

"Why is this my problem? He's your friend too!" Lilly's arms were crossed and she was trying to look at Miley angrily, but her eyes kept straying to the door leading to the hallway they had just come from.

"I'm afraid of the wrestling team; you're not," Miley deadpanned.

Confusion crossed Lilly's face before she realized Miley was not serious. She then replied, "one well aimed kick and they leave you alone."

Miley gave her a look and Lilly wondered why she was friends with someone who was always so bossy. She huffed and handed Miley her bag before heading for the exit.

As soon as she made it out the doors to the cafeteria, she sprinted in the direction of Oliver's locker. The wrestling captain was just about to turn the corner in that direction.

"Blaine!" Lilly yelled, hoping that his girlfriend would hear it, and then get away from Oliver.

He turned around to see who was calling him, and as Lilly skidded to a stop in front of him, he asked, "what do you want, freshman?"

Lilly bit down the retort that would normally be automatic to his very rude tone, and said, "great match last week," keeping a smile pasted on her face.

She edged a look around him to find that Oliver and the blond were still standing in front of his locker. The hallway had pretty much cleared of other students.

"Uh, thanks?" Blaine gave her a strange look, as though no one had ever congratulated him on winning a match before.

"So," Lilly tried again, raising her voice a little bit, "that choke hold you used was really cool."

She risked another look around his broad frame and saw that the blond had looked in their direction, but she was not backing down. Her hand was still on Oliver's arm. Well, this was not good.

Lilly cleared her throat, saying, "I know we don't have a girls' wrestling team, so I was just wondering if you could maybe tell me how it works." She was unsure just how long this conversation would hold his attention. Blaine was not known for his focus.

"You just put your arm around the other guy's neck and apply pressure." Blaine gave her a small smile and started to turn, but Lilly grabbed his arm.

"Really? That's it? What if he tries to, you know, stop you? I mean, that's the whole point, right?" Lilly pulled her hand back when she was sure Blaine was looking at her.

"Look, if you really want to know, you should just come to a practice. It's hard to explain. Coach is better at it." With that, Blaine spun around before Lilly could stop him.

She quickly walked in front of him, trying to cut him off from Oliver.

"Are you sure? I bet you're a great teacher!" Lilly told him brightly, but Blaine had already seen his girlfriend and Oliver with one hand braced against the lockers while he talked to her.

"Why don't I demonstrate?" he asked her snidely as he took the last few steps to the pair.

"Oh, boy," Lilly whispered when he walked around her.

"Yo, you flirting with my girlfriend?"

"What?" Oliver asked, turning around. His eyes widened and he said, "no, of course not, why would I be flirting with your girlfriend?" Nervous laughter followed and Lilly rolled her eyes.

There was an outraged exhalation of air from behind Oliver and the girl testily asked, "am I not good enough for you to flirt with?"

"Oh, please." Lilly said it a lot louder than she meant to and found the other blond glaring at her.

"I never said that," Oliver told her quickly, but his eyes stayed on her very large boyfriend who took another step closer.

"You think you're special or something?" Blaine asked Oliver, gesturing to his tee shirt, the words "Chick Magnet" splayed across in a bold print with the outline of one of those huge U shaped magnets normally found in cartoons printed just below the words.

"You know what?" Lilly quickly hopped between Blaine and Oliver, hoping to serve as a distraction again. "I don't need a demonstration. You're right, I should just come to a practice." She smiled brightly, but Blaine gave a low growl.

"Demonstration of what?" Oliver whispered behind her.

"You don't wanna know," Lilly informed him shortly. Blaine took another step closer and he was towering over Lilly and Oliver.

"You should probably move out of his way," came the sugary sweet voice of the girl Lilly decided was just as evil as Joanie Palumbo.

Lilly turned her head so she could eye the taller blond and snapped, "and you should probably not lead one boy on when you're dating another."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me! They have a name for girls like you!"

Lilly's hands moved to her hips and she turned fully to face the other girl. Oliver was now the one trying to stop her from doing something stupid.

"Lilly," he hissed, "don't make her angry."

"Don't make her angry? Are you kidding me?" Her eyes flashed dangerously at her best friend.

"You're just jealous. You know I'm prettier. It's not my fault your boyfriend likes me better."

"Oh, she's not my girlfriend," Oliver said quickly, gesturing to Lilly before he noticed that her eyes looked as though they could turn him to stone. "Not that I wouldn't be so lucky to have you as a girlfriend Lils, cause you're awesome!"

The expression on Lilly's face did not change and Oliver tried to push himself further back against the lockers, wishing he was invisible.

"So you were flirting with him?" Blaine asked, confused.

"Of course not. He was flirting with me," his girlfriend responded breezily, sweeping her hair over her shoulder and batting her eyelashes at the wrestler.

"That's seriously the story you're going with?" Lilly snapped. "You couldn't even be more creative, like you were only flirting with him so he would give you help on a homework assignment or something?"

"Why would I want his help? He's not that smart."

"Hey!" Oliver protested. "I'm smart… sometimes."

"Enough talking!" Blaine interrupted them.

"You should probably run now," Lilly whispered to Oliver. As he took off down the hallway, she quickly informed the wrestler that, "his mom's a cop!"

Blaine did not seem to hear her as he charged down the corridor after Oliver.

It was a very short time later that Ms. Kunkle was escorting Lilly to the principal's office because she was attempting to throttle Blaine's girlfriend outside of the science classroom. Apparently, when the two girls were yelling at one another about which of them was giving blondes a bad name, it had disrupted the teacher's concentration, and she had to take a break from grading the lab reports of her last class.

Oliver and Blaine were brought in moments later by Coach Hendricks, both of them sopping wet. Oliver had stumbled right into the pool in an effort to get away from the crazy wrestling star, and Blaine, being Blaine, had just kept right on following him into the eight feet deep chlorinated water. Blaine did not catch him, but did anger the gym coach who had been trying to clean the pool filter.

Lilly would have been highly amused if she was not so angry that she had ended up with detention that afternoon. Detention that involved scraping gum from the bleachers in the gym. She proceeded to remind Oliver just how much she hated him at regular intervals throughout the day, right on through detention. Oliver, for his part, took it all in stride, assuring her that she was his favorite person ever too, which only prompted her to try and pelt him with another wad of gum, and earn the two of them yet another afternoon of detention.


End file.
